Google Finance's stock screener allows you to search for stocks (currently US stocks only) by specifying a much richer set of criteria than a text search allows. For instance, if you wanted to look for bargain small-cap stocks, you could perform a search for stocks with a Market cap between 0 and $100M and a 52-week price change between -70 and -40%.

You can screen stocks using these default criteria or specify your own criteria. Once you've selected your desired criteria, provide upper and lower limits for each criterion. The list of results update as you refine your search. Click any result to go to the Google Finance summary page for that company.

Find Similar Stocks

From any company page there is a link to ‘Find similar stocks’. This feature will go to the stock screener page where stocks of similar characteristics can be viewed. The similarities are based on a number of criteria and the stock screener will have the values pre-set. Criterion can be adjusted and the search can be refined accordingly.

Example: Clicking the ‘Find similar stocks’ from Apple’s company page will display the stock screener with the P/E Ratio and Return on Equity set to a min and max for figures that give an actual representation for that of Apple’s ratios.

The default 'Min' and 'Max' values for any criterion correspond to the minimum and maximum values possible, given the stocks you can screen. You can adjust a parameter in two ways:

Enter a new value in the 'Min' or 'Max' text boxes.

Drag the slider between the text boxes to choose a value.

The results of your screen updates automatically as you use the slider to adjust the values of your criteria. If you enter a value in the text box, press Enter or Tab on your keyboard to update the results.

The blue bar graphs behind the sliders represent the relative frequency of stocks for that criterion, depending on your minimum and maximum values. The graph is meant to aid you in your selection, but please keep in mind that the graph is a visual aid, not an analytic tool. Its scale isn't constant (neither within nor across the criteria), and it reflects relative, not absolute, values.

The columns in the results section display company names of the stocks you're screening, their ticker symbols, and values for the criteria you've selected. By default, the results are sorted alphabetically by company name, but you can sort by any category listed by clicking that category's column header. Click the column header a second time to sort that category in the opposite order.

You can also refine your results using the sector and exchange drop-down menus on the right side, just above the results.